


Coran's Curiosities

by spacecuppa (EmmaLikesTheInternet)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Curiosity Shop, Dragons, F/M, Fluff, Humour, Kissing, Learning to love and appreciate your friends, M/M, Magic, Overthrowing the government, Romance, Sci Fi/Fantasy AU, Slow Burn, Space Politics, Steampunk City, Supernatural - Freeform, Unlikely heroes, Uprising, Witch AU, cursed items, fairy folk, powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 03:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15548358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaLikesTheInternet/pseuds/spacecuppa
Summary: Gaea, by geographical incidence, got strange and shifty travellers. The citizens were not as afraid as other enslaved planets; a rebellious race, at the roots, and full of immigrants and insurgents who’d made their bed upon the small planet.Cambridge attracted the uncanny of these citizens. There were rumours it was because, in Cambridge, they still practiced magic.The universe is big, scary and complicated. This is the story of how a witch, a scholar, a zombie and a runaway overthrow an intergalactic fascist regime, and life somehow continues, while they’re at it.





	Coran's Curiosities

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! I will likely go back and edit this, but I just wanted to get a chapter up before Season Seven and I won't have WiFi all week. This is going to be crazy; I've got a whole arc planned out. Dip your feet in, see if you like it, and if so, subscribe for more!! Thanks so much and enjoy xo

It was raining.

The air was thick with wet; that rain smell your nose always chases, yet can’t quite figure out. Is it earthy, dusty? Is it the smell of last night’s puddles or just the steam, playing tricks? Maybe it’s what cold smells like. Numb noses and frozen toes.

The faraway palace spires had dissolved into layers of steam and downpour, like a fairyland you have to squint to see. The sun had risen and nobody had noticed, obscured as it was by great clouds, and each raindrop winked with muffled sunlight in its swift downfall.

A chunk of horse shit was whisked past by the river that had formed over the street’s slickened cobblestones. The tall figure noticed, made a face and picked his way around it.

He was built much like a twig, drowning in a trenchcoat thrown over jeans. A leather satchel was flung, careless, over his narrow shoulders. His fingers, long and slender and tinged a ghostly blue, busied themselves tapping a rhythm against pearly buttons that scaled the length of his throat.

The street was narrow and tall, distorted in the almost-light. It was a backalley sort of street; the people above knit their curtains tight and never asked questions, and as for the people below…Well, you wouldn’t very much like to being caught there, some dark evening.

It was not a dark evening. Nevertheless, the figure walked close to the skinny, haphazard buildings, sleeve brushing brick, because it felt safer to stand by something real. He reached a door. Glace to the left, glace to the right, checking for wandering eyes completely conspicuously.

No need, for all the people had fled the clouds. He shared the alley with nothing more than a scrawny-looking cat, and a tall, cloaked shadow that disappeared in an instant, anyway.

Upwards, and the heavens still clamoured. Rain rolled off his hot, dark skin like teardrops.

He had little protection against the downpour, merely his coat and a grey, woollen scarf which raindrops clung to like jewels. After his ten minute journey, he was soaked through; yet, still, he stood and stared at the sky.

A door opened, and with it came a wave of delicious heat. “Hunk says if you don’t stop staring gormlessly at the sky he’s coming out there and strangling you. Or something.” The voice laughed, with an uncharacteristic lightness.

The figure’s frozen face cracked into a bright and warm smile. “I have a feeling you’re paraphrasing there, Keith.”

A voice from further inside escaped the doorway. “He’s certainly paraphrasing. Come in, Lance, you’ll catch your death out there.”

Lance complied. He jabbed Keith’s ribs on the way past and shed his coat and boots at the doormat.

The room had a single, wide window on the slanted roof, and, aside from candles that ‘set a tone’, according to Coran, was the only light source. It filtered through the small space, projecting the dancing image of raindrops across each surface. The rows and rows of books were barely illuminated; if you didn’t look too close, it felt as if the shelves went on forever.

The whole room seemed warped, surreal in the half-light. It gave Lance a headache to look at, but was cosy nonetheless.

He unravelled his jewelled scarf and lobbed it at Keith’s head, missing and instead rising a dust cloud from a display case, filled with all manner of grotesque, bizarre items Coran reserved for ‘special clients’. Lance grimaced at the glassy gaze of a dead fox. “Close the door then, it’s freezing.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Lance.” Lance responded with kissy faces and ran straight into Hunk’s arms.

“Chrissake, man, not even a jumper?” Hunk shook his head, despairingly. His eyebrow furrowed.

“Sooooo waaaarm.” Hunk the human heater.

“You’re so irresponsible, I swear. It’s winter and you’re wearing a T-shirt?” Hunk rubbed his friend’s icy arms, fussing over his state like an (undead) mother hen. “Sit down, I’m going to grab you something to wear.”

Lance searched for somewhere to sit. Almost every surface was covered with Coran’s famed miscellaneous: aside from books and dead foxes, there were music boxes, pinned butterflies and fairies (illegal), dried and presumably poisonous herbs, wizard’s staffs (also illegal), haunted jack-in-the-boxes and ventriloquist dolls (that would jump up in unison whenever Lance was trying to nap), miniature armies, a vampire-slaying kit (remarkably, not illegal), a rocking chair that rocked in the corner, perpetually and ominously, a mummified cat and an everlasting candle and beads and fish and kettles and goblets and card decks and potion bottles and machine parts.

Lance didn’t fancy sitting in the rocking chair (whenever he tried his ears were filled with a piercing scream that only he could hear) so he plonked on the ground near the till, devoting his attention to Keith.

Keith had obediently closed the door and was now cross-legged on the counter, nose buried in a book, paying no attention whatsoever to Lance’s gaze.

Lance envied Keith’s focus. He could fixate his mind on one task without it ever wondering, and it had got him far in everything, made him smart and reliable and everything Lance wasn’t.

It also meant he got irritable when someone disturbed said focus. Lance had, in fact, made it his life mission to irritate Keith, so, really, not trying to distract him would be an absolute crime.

“Hey, Keith, do you think I even need to try and stay alive?”

Keith ignored him.

“Like, if I got pneumonia, I bet I could heal myself, for starters. I have my notes on phlegm ailments with me today, and all. And, like, would it even matter if I died? I could become a cool zombie or something. Shay’s grandmother worked wonders on Hunk.”

Keith continued to ignore him.

“Or, like, I could hire a vampire to bite me on my deathbed!”

“I’m not letting you become a vampire, Lance.”

Keith was lowering his book. Victory!

“Why not? Vampires are cool, man. I could be like Maisie, the captain of the Rotten Rose. She’s a vampire. And a space pirate. I could cruise the galaxies, running a ship, being piratical and romantic. I would get _all_ the girls.” Lance sniffed as he considered this. “I think I’ve decided to become a space pirate.”

Keith groaned. “You idiot. Space piracy doesn’t get you girls. It gets you scurvy. And blown into pieces. Like Shiro.”

“Explosions are child’s play, I can just get a mechanical arm like he did. Shiro’s still alive, see!”

It was a touchy subject for Keith, since Shiro was his adoptive brother and he’d been understandably 2upset by what happened. “Yeah, and he’s on Cambridge’s most wanted, for being a cyborg.”

“I’m already on Cambridge’s most wanted, and so are you. Go big or go home, I say!”

Keith buried his head in his hands. “We’re supposed to be discreet. And, shit, I’m supposed to be reading. Could you just be quiet for two seconds?”

Lance glanced at Keith’s book, counting in his head. It was titled ‘How to Overthrow the Government’, which was fair enough.

“TWO SECONDS IS OVER!” Keith let out the longest groan Lance had ever heard a human produce.

Hunk emerged from the back room, balancing three steaming mugs and two knit jumpers. “What did you do this time?” he asked Lance.

“Nothing!”

“Is he lying, Keith?” Keith nodded. “I’m disappointed in you, Lance.”

“But Muuuuuuuuuum!”

Hunk dumped everything on the oak side. It was the only thing in the shop without a second skin of dust; a polished, rosy colour. The raindrop light made watery reflections across its surface. “Shirt off. It’s soaked.”

Lance blushed but obliged, grabbing the smaller jumper. It was Christmas themed, black with white reindeer and holly leaves. He glanced at Keith, who was reading his book pointedly, before slipping it on.

“Yours is the cat mug, milk and ‘two’ sugars, ((but it’s really three)).” Lance stopped pouting and beamed right up at Hunk with thanks, who shrugged. Yeah, that was the kind of friend he was. 

“Keith, black coffee. I fetched you a jumper too, you looked a tad chilly.”

Keith’s tiny smile indicated that Hunk had, as ever, been spot on. He nodded with thanks, closing his book to pull it over his shirt, and, okay, it was _way_ too big.

Lance couldn’t justifiably make a short joke, having only an inch or so on the other, but he stifled a laugh at the sight before him. Keith, scowling at him darkly, a light pink jumper covering his knees and making _the_ most spectacular sweater paws Lance had ever seen.

“Not a word.” His gaze was sharp.

Lance noted the pink heart embroidered over the breast. “Hey. Accusing me of crimes before I even commit them.” 

He busied himself unpacking notes from home he’d been copying up last night, sifting through them until they were arranged numerically. He was about to call Hunk into the office to help him file (nobody messed with Hunk’s filing without the utmost scrutiny), when he saw Keith in the corner of his eye.

He had resumed his book from where he’d balanced it, pages down and spread, on the cashier. His free hand wrapped around his steaming coffee, absent-mindedly clacking his fingernails against it, and his face was arranged in an expression of intent concentration, if the slightest confusion; eyebrows furrowed, eyes skirting, lips slightly, slightly parted.

Lance drank it in, that tiny sliver of time, with gratitude. Because, the rain was pounding the roof. His freezing hands were wrapped around a steaming mug. He was warm, and the sight before him was just- 

Well. A sight.

Moments, our lives are filled with moments. Moments in a butterfly-fleeting life in which everything feels _real_ , and permanent.

Lance knew, then, that the tiny shop on the narrow street in the rain would last forever. And that was when the moment snapped.

He pushed down the tightening of his chest and dragged Hunk, tea and all, to the window. “Watch the rain with me.”

He cleared off the surface and settled his backside on the window seat; which, by conventional terms, _wasn’t_ a window seat, rather a (relatively) sturdy set of drawers pushed to the window. Hunk hopped beside him.

The silence needed to be filled. Hunk filled it.

“Y’know, Coran’s in the back playing piano again.”

Lance turned to him. The raindrops danced on his face, too. “He only ever plays when he’s hungover. Or being paid. Did anyone pay him?”

Keith’s eyes peeped over his book. “He asked me for whiskey when I came back from work at like 2am.”

“And you gave it to him?”

“Yeah. I dunno, he’d found it and I was too tired and I couldn’t say no without…well, talking. About this.” Keith lowered his head back to book level, indicating that his contribution to the conversation was over.

“That’s the third time this month. God.” Hunk worried the material of his jacket, so Lance jabbed him with a socked foot.

“Hey, Coran likes showing off his pianist skills. There are worst habits to have.”

Hunk looked unconvinced, but he relaxed, a smidgeon. “I like your dragon socks, Lance,” he said quietly.

“Thanks, man.”

Keith poked his nose back into the conversation, unhelpfully. “Dragon socks, huh? Be careful with those. People might think it’s a political statement, or something.”

“It is a political statement, and, Keith, you’re reading a book called ‘How to Overthrow the Government’.” This made Keith throw his head back and laugh, which in turn made Lance’s body, pressed against the glass, warm once more.

“I got a problem with authority.” The conversation lulled for a second, and Lance listened to the hammering of the rain.

He exhaled, stretching. “You know, Coran only drinks because he cares. He’s scared of letting us down so he’s cutting us off. We should talk to him, get him theorising about Project Voltron again. Remind him what he’s fighting for.”

Hunk beamed, making everything worth it. “You’re right, Lance. C’mon, let’s file these and then I can speak to him.” He rushed into the backroom, arms stacked with papers. It was Lance’s impromptu clinic, where he offered unconventional (illegal) medical care to those who were desperate enough.

Lance paused in front of the shop cashier, meeting Keith’s eyes. “You mentioned you weren’t back ‘til two. Are you alright?”

Keith smiled wanly. “I’m fine. Hunk’s magic coffee is helping me along, and, besides, it’ll be a slow day. I can get some studying in and all.”

Lance pursed his lips with concern, but Keith spoke again before he could say anything.

“Thanks for taking notice, Lance. It means a lot, even if I’m fine.” Are you fine? “Now go on, find Hunk, save some people. Do what you do.”

Lance smiled.

-

Pidge stood outside the Job Centre, looking rather forlorn in the rain.

Strapped to her back was a large carpet bag, pattern faded into neutral toned oblivion. It was filled with her earthly possessions; a few items from her childhood. Stolen clothes. A penknife, a compass, an Ordnance Survey map dated 2477 (the newest she could find). A bag of coins she didn’t want to think too hard about.

She held a potted plant under her tweed jumper, afraid the rain would soak it through. The rain came from every direction, and it left the square totally empty. She was grateful for it; Pidge didn’t like people too much, and, besides, nobody was there to stare at her eerily familiar features, because, yes, they could’ve sworn they’d seen that face before, surely…

There was no real risk; Pidge was happily but a fleeting face; but it was hard to quash the anxiety of a thousand eyes on your back.

Three days ago, Pidge had arrived in St Pancras with a string of coppers on her tail. Fastest way to the lower Danube regions, but the man at the ticket office had taken one look at her hooded face and shook his head.

“What?” She had inclined her head at the pile of shillings and crowns. “I’d like a ticket.”

“I.D, please, young sir.” His voice was nasal and disinterested.

“I don’t have an I.D.”

“First time travelling in London, sir?”

“Yes. Would you please explain to me the problem?”

The man opened his logbook, sipping his mug of tea. “Any nice plans for the weekend, sir?”

Pidge clenched her jaw. “Well, I was hoping to be travelling on a train, actually.” 

“Very nice, sir. This won’t take a moment.”

Pidge sighed in exasperation and cast her glance toward the ceiling. The glass ceiling might have been beautiful once, but now it was smogged, and obscured with a maze of dented metals and pipes. Each time a train would pass through a tunnel above, the bolts shook. Pidge couldn’t help but wonder, what would happen if the whole thing collapsed overhead?

It wouldn’t. London was the city of steam and oil.

“Can you please explain the problem?” Her voice was terse.

“Mmm. Well, sir, you need an identification to travel, I’m afraid. Palace orders. Your name?”

“How do I get an identification?”

“Your name, sir?”

Pidge sighed again. “Pidge Gunderson.”

He pencilled it in. “The only way to obtain an identification is to be employed for the measure of three months in any city under the Union. Keeps business circling. I can, however, offer you a provisional, one-way ticket to as far as Cambridge.”

Pidge pressed her lips together. She could take her chances here, under the radar of men in uniform, sleep on the streets and leave as soon as three months were through.

Or, she could do what she was best at; run as far away as possible.

“I’ll take it.”

Cambridge was infamous in the mouths of the underground people. Pidge had heard her brother speak of it once; its ancient beauty and power stark against the rest of its chrome and careless world.

Gaea was, by every technicality, under the Empire’s control. But, it was a borderline planet; just to the east lay vast expanses of space, and then the Danube and Elbe. Independent, and resistant to the all-consuming force of the Galra.

Gaea, by geographical incidence, got strange and shifty travellers. The citizens were not as afraid as other enslaved planets; a rebellious race, at the roots, and full of immigrants and rebels who’d made their bed upon the small planet.

Cambridge attracted the uncanny of these citizens. There were rumours it was because, in Cambridge, they still practiced magic.

Which, when Matt had whispered stories in the night, had filled Pidge to the brim with tenacious thrill.

Standing here, now; maybe the rain had washed all the magic away. It was muddy, more than anything.

Upon closer inspection, the windows of the Job Centre were grimy. It looked less like a booming centre of trade, and more like a garden shed.

_Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Job Centre is closed until further notice. Apologies for any inconvenience caused thereby._ The inked longhand had almost faded, even from behind the window. Pidge cursed.

She took a helpless stumble backwards, casting a long look about her. The rain was letting off ever-so-slightly, and people began to emerge from windows and doorways, restless. A sharp-nosed teen boy walked past Pidge, sweeping the cobblestones. As he passed the notice board on the back of the Job Centre, he ripped down the familiar purple of a rain-streaked poster. Not even caring who saw.

_Praise Emperor Zarkon_ , it read in garish yellow font. _Our dignified Leader, Father to all._

Pidge almost jumped out of her skin when a hand rested on the back of her shoulder. She whipped around, to find a man, tall and shadowy and cloaked, and with an apparent ability of evading everybody’s notice.

In an instant, Pidge had him pinned against the wall, arm twisted. He blinked at her with the vague impression of eyes.

“This Job Centre’s been closed the best of a decade, you know.”

“Yeah, well, guess my map’s a little outdated.”

He smiled a partially obscured smile, and Pidge held her breath for a fraction of a second. “Unusual circumstances?”

“How could you tell?” Why was she telling the truth?

“You have that face about you. The Wanted Poster face. I’m most certain I’ve seen you before.”

“My brother. My brother, you would’ve seen. He’s wanted by the Empire. We look similar.” Pidge bit her tongue.

“I’m sure.”

“I have nothing to do with him. I haven’t seen him in years. He died. I’m nothing like him.”

“I’m sure,” the man repeated. “See that boy over there?”

Pidge glanced in the direction of his slight head inclination. The teenaged boy had stopped sweeping the cobblestones, and was now unlocking a bicycle, the paint chipped. The poster he had torn down was visible from his pockets.

The clock struck twelve.

“In one hour, he’ll return to this spot, to lock his bicycle up again. Go to him. Ask for Coran. He’ll get you a job, no questions asked. He’s from Coran’s Curiosities. They shelter fugitives like you.”

Pidge snarled, firming her grip on him. She glanced around for any indications of a bug, and apparently the man could read minds, because he chuckled a condescending chuckle.

“There’s no bugs in the bricks, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nobody cares anymore.” With ease, he flung Pidge off of him. “And when you talk to Lance, tell the boy to stop walking around with propaganda posters sticking out of his pockets. Ironically enough, he wouldn’t know inconspicuous if it slapped him in the face.”

Pidge blinked, and he was gone.

She didn’t know where to go from here. The man was a textbook creep; why did she feel inclined to trust him?

It seemed like this Coran’s Curiosities was the hub of dodginess, to be blunt. But maybe that’s where Pidge belonged.

And, if there was a hope in hell of finding Matt…

She watched as the boy cycled off, ringing his bell. Inconspicuous, huh.

What threw Pidge off most of all was the way the man had let her pin him, as he spoke. He didn’t struggle, didn’t show his strength until he needed to.

Where she was from, you had to flaunt your muscles, or else. They were all like alley cats, puffing up under confrontation. Mistrusting, feral. She hadn’t belonged there, but childhood had taught her a thing or too.

Pidge set her jaw, filled with a new kind of determination. Things were different here.

-

The city consisted mostly of alleyways.

In the direct centre, there was the market square, with roads branching off North, South, East and West. In the north there was a park, and the south a canal. East led you to the station, and West to a neighbouring village, then to farmland and hamlets, then to a great expanse of nothingness. 

Each road was punctuated with sideroads, then tiny backstreets, which fazed into a maze of alleyways even the most skilled had trouble navigating. There was many a dark corner. The buildings were scruffed about the edges, and crammed. People were stacked on top of each other, and the teetering buildings gave barely enough room to breathe.

Apart from the palace.

Once a communal place, to welcome travellers and offer solace. Common pasture, they called it. A prehistoric phrase, one used by the ancients to mean any peasant could graze their cow upon this soil. It had been spacious yet never, never empty; full of the life and love of a kingdom and its people.

Now, the palace was surrounded by a wall.

Lance cycled past it every day, if only as a reminder. He’d never known a life outside the Empire; but others had.

He was four years old. The fire had flickered, casting restless shadows upon his grandmother’s face, as she bounced him on her knee.

The words she painted were unlike ones Lance had heard before, or indeed, will ever hear. A story passed down by generation, about the old days. About the city’s magic and valour and beauty. About a kingdom, which gave the people freedom to live out their fitful lives, and above all speak their mind.

“Cambridge has not forgotten, my dear,” she had said. “Nor will you forget. One day things will change. It is only the natural course of things. One day the bullets they fire will be blank.”

Lance knew it was naïve. Idealistic; that believing in change was childish. But, what else was there to believe in?

Today he was bound for the boulevard. An overgrown tunnel, that encircled the city like a snake; it had widened and was rather a miniature forest than anything else.

And, more so than any other place in the city, it was alive.

Eyes watched him from the bushes, peaking from knots in trees. Tumble-down ivy stumps hummed with activity, fairies busy with some sort of pressing engagement; as fairies often are. A row of squirrels fled, as his wheel flung up clumps of mud, and he tore past dangling roots and bejewelled spider webs, which gleamed in the midday sun. His legs pumped tirelessly, forehead damp with perspiration and raindrops.

He stopped to let a toad hop across the path. Still, and his plane of vision was alive with movement. Dragonflies darted across the path, pursued by an animate Venus flytrap. The puddles bubbled, disturbed by the patter of rain, and Lance couldn’t help but liken it to some of Hunk’s more creative potions. A pixie winked at him.

He arrived at the cottage in no time, flinging his bike to the ground. Allura was in the garden, cross-legged.

“Hunk would probably cry if he saw this,” Lance said, sitting down beside her. The damp of the grass seeped into his jeans, making him squirm slightly.

“I love the rain. This water?” She showed Lance a raindrop in her hand. “It’s been further than we ever have. It’s travelled to the other side of the planet, then back again. It’s been a river, an ocean, a cloud. And now it’s a raindrop.” She let it roll off her palm. “I love the rain.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for a minute or so. Lance watched the water bounce off the defiant colour of the evergreen, rolling down to the gutter of decaying leaves.

“I’m sorry. Days like these…reminds me of my father. I miss him.”

Lance smiled. “Yeah. I know. At least we still have the rain.”

“We always will.” There was an unspoken understanding, between Lance and Allura. They hurt. But memories would always remain dear; and, what’s more, worth fighting for.

“We ought to go inside, you’re starting to shiver.” Lance looked down and, yes, now that he was off the bicycle, his hands were shaking and translucent. Hunk had done his best to bundle him up, but most the itchy layers had ended up stuffed in his satchel. He kept Keith’s scarf. “What brings you here exactly? Coran?”

“No, I’m collecting some supplies for a new potion. Hunk has already briefed Shay, she should have the ingredients ready and she’s coming over to help us out tomorrow.”

Allura smiled, unlocking the door and ushering him into the warmth. “That sounds lovely.”

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to an afternoon of being a gooseberry while they make eyes at each other.” This made her muffle a snicker into the towel.

Allura owned lavish property in the city centre; grand apartment after grand apartment in the richer districts, that her father had willed to her. However, she chose to make her bed in the deepest part of the urban forest. It was a cottage, never dwarfed by its inhabitants, always filled with life and chatter and a roaring fireplace. Lance imagined this was what the palace was like, once upon a time.

Whenever Lance visited, he felt a surging in his veins, as if they were alight with something. No doubt, Allura chose the spot, not just for its solitude, but it’s certain qualities. It was a haven for…something.

“Take a seat, Shiro has a pot brewing, if you’d like some. Just English Breakfast. How do you take your tea?”

“Two sugars, with milk, please.”

“You hear that, Shiro?” An affirming grunt came from the kitchen.

“Where can I hire a decommissioned space pirate hausfrau?” Allura snickered into her hand.

“Yeah, I can actually hear more than just your tea orders, thank you very much, Lance.” Shiro popped his head around the door connecting the adjourned kitchen. “Please stop dripping on my carpet. How’s Keith?”

“Came into the shop at 2am, gave Coran alcohol, says he’s doing fine, is a filthy liar.” Lance mopped up the puddle he’d made guiltily.

Shiro sighed. “I honestly think he’s rebelling against me by doing his schoolwork. Who knew. Can you ask the shop over for dinner on Wednesday?”

“Yeah, of course. Roast?”

“I’ll go all out. Yorkshires, potatoes, gravy, veggies, pastries. Trifle for dessert. All come over at about four? Hunk can help, if he wants, and the rest of you can make sure Allura stays the fuck away from my kitchen.” Shiro had Keith’s direction, but was a thousand times more meticulous, and would’ve gone on listing the details of his plan if the kettle hadn’t whistled.

Allura watched Shiro bolt to the kitchen. “Coran is drinking?” Her eyes were distant and unseeing.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think he coerced Keith’s feeble mind into getting some.” The lightness of his tone didn’t reach Allura. “Look, he finds it hard. You know he does. He’s used to fighting wars, to leading uprisings and dreaming up great revolutions.” The rain beat against the window. “We’ve reached a dead end.”

Shiro emerged again with steaming mugs for the two of them, a tin of biscuits braced comically against his side by a bulging bicep. Lance believed that the sole requirement for living in the cottage was ridiculous attractiveness; Shiro and Allura were probably the two best-looking people he’d ever seen, complete with annoying jawlines and full lips and perfect skin. Dammit. Bisexuality in a living room.

He accepted the tea with thanks, declining the dark chocolate Digestives shoved under his nose. Allura took three.

“Hang on, I’ll get Shay.” Lance settled into the sofa, sighing with contentment. “Shay! Tea! Lance is here!” Shay responded with a squawk a couple of rooms over. Lance was guessing she’d forgotten about the ingredients.

Lance sunk deeper into the soft surface of the sofa, tea quietly steaming. His frozen hands were thawed, and, he and Allura, side by side in a gentle silence, were the picture of peace. Far from the storm. These were the moments worth struggling for.

“Is this your bag, Lance?” Shay poked her head around the doorframe, Lance’s satchel glistening with wet. Shay appeared to notice this, and cast her eyes to the brand new puddle on the carpet. “Whoops.”

Lance giggled. “That’s the one. Thanks so much, Shay.”

“Thank you for coming to collect them.” Shay sat beside Allura, wrapping her hands around a huge mug. “The rosemary need to be left in the moonlight, and do not forget to prepare linin in vinegar. It is important, it airs the space for the spells.” Lance nodded. Hunk had told him this at least five times already.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you, and so’s Hunk. He’s been chatting about it for days.” Lance fought off a grin that would unveil his motives.

“Oh, that’s very kind.” Shay was avoiding eye contact. Her face was a shade darker, which probably counted as a Balmeran blush. Allura was chuckling in the corner.

Shiro emerged with a forgotten tea towel still thrown across his shoulder. He regarded the scene with his perceptive Shiro gaze, then shot Lance a scolding look. “Shay, I was talking about inviting everyone over for a meal on Wednesday. How does that sound?”

“Oh, lovely. Would you care for some help cooking?”

“That’d be just perfect. Lance, do you mind budging up?”

Lance shifted his bum. “I’ll be leaving in just a second, anyway. Shay’s given me all the ingredients, I’ll head off once I’ve finished my tea.”

Shiro collapsed beside him with a long-suffering sigh. He closed his eyes and let his head roll back. “Well. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

-

Pidge worried the edge of her sleeve, eyes glued on the tower clock. Since, she’d found herself a quaint little café with chequered tablecloths and sunflower vases. People kept staring at her, with their beady and darting eyes, but the rising steam from the rain made the air taste fresher than normal. She felt wrapped up in content.

Lance appeared to be late, but from the blasé way he had weaved around on his bicycle, he’d probably not be hurrying home. Pidge couldn’t help but speculate; what was Cambridge hiding?

The folk at Coran’s Curiosities seemed different from the rest of the citizens. Every person Pidge had watched from her post outside the café seemed…tense.

More emerged from the crumbly buildings once the turbulent sky subdued. Families; sticky fingers clinging to suit jackets and skirts alike; tall and gangly boys doffing caps, girls with pale knees sticking out over itchy stockings; street urchins like the ones back home, glittering eyes deep in dirty faces. 

They spoke, but only ever in whispers. When the babies screamed, their mothers swung them back onto her hip, hushing them, before darting nervous glances about the area.

Pidge watched silently as a boy, older than her, serious and sour-looking, paced anxiously past. He glanced up towards the great spires, a bitter expression swirling across his face.

That expression had more than just resentment. The people were restless; they had been waiting too long for change to come knocking, and were now poised to jump into action.

A bicycle bell rung. The boy was back, whooping as he turned the corner, oblivious to the quiet restlessness of the people about him. Pidge didn’t know what made the boy ‘fugitive’ enough to belong in Coran’s Curiosities, but every part of him stuck out like a sore thumb. Everything about his demeanour, his energy, was so forthright that it was almost inspiring.

If this was only the beginning, who else would she meet in this mysterious place?

Pidge leapt from her seat. “Hey! Lance!”

The lanky boy whipped his body around at the sound of his name. The grin on his face melted into a confused frown.

Pidge’s eyes widened. “Watch out!”

Lance turned back around a moment too late, and slammed right into the lamppost. Limbs, chains, and wheels collapsed into an impossibly tangled heap. Pidge rushed to help.

Once he’d figured out what’d happened, Lance turned back to her with a scowl. “You made me fall off my bike.”

“Um?” Pidge extended a hand. Lance turned up his nose, easing himself to his feet.

“This bicycle is ancient, you know. Belonged to my brother before me, and Ma always claimed it was a miracle it held up between the two of us.” He propped the bicycle up, inspecting the mangled chain. “Ugh, I’ll have to take it to Coran.”

“Right, anyway. Some guy in a hood told me you were from Coran’s Curiosities, and could get me a job. No questions asked.”

“Do I look like Cambridge’s HR manager? I’m not talking to you, creep. You broke my bike.” Lance turned his back abruptly, huffing. “No, seriously. Do I look like a HR manager?”

Pidge took a deep breath and counted to three. “I can pay for your bike, if you want.”

Huff.

“Sorry?” she offered.

She could see Lance wavering. A few seconds later, he faced her again, and gave a small smile. “That’s alright,” he said, extending an arm. “Yeah, I can get you a job. My name’s Lance.”

“Pidge,” she replied.

And that’s how, within hours of arriving in Cambridge, Pidge was following a loud boy and a broken bike, to a reported haven of fugitives in the most bizarre city in the world.

-

The shop in question seemed positively unassuming from the front; groaning beams of mahogany, yellowed glass, sandstone cladding on the flat above, a front door painted a peeling bottle-green. But, looks can be deceiving (as Lance, her impromptu tour guide, assured her). 

“This place? It’s the centre of the world. Anything odd, anything that doesn’t quite abide to our two-dimensional laws; winds up here, at some point or another.” He granted her a knowing smile. He’d certainly warmed up after the bike incident. “And that includes people.”

He reached out a hand and rapped the knocker sharply, once, twice, thrice. “Coran’s a scientist, I guess you could say. A genius, too, and he researches all oddities that crop up on the surface. Gets sucked in with it, too. On physical terms, he is normal, but in reality; well, he’s more of a part of this than any of us.”

Pidge was about to ask what ‘this’ was, but, as though sensing the unspoken question, Lance tapped his nose mysteriously.

“Behind this door is every secret, every question and every answer the universe has to offer.” Lance met her eyes with a twinkle, before throwing the door open with far more drama than necessary. “I’m sure you’ll fit in fine.”

Pidge’s first impression of Coran’s Curiosities was the pure, overwhelming stench of _old_. 

It was every library and museum and creepy old house at the end of the road. It was every pocket of time Pidge had ever visited, with rising dust like constellations in the pale sunlight. With a thousand distant smells merging into something unbearable.

She wrinkled her nose. So this was the centre of the world.

“Just take your time to absorb it all,” Lance advised from behind her, still bothering with the dramatic voice. “Sorry about the smell. That’d be Keith.”

Pidge’s gaze snagged on the first sign of movement in the massive, gloomy room; to her left, a boy was cross-legged on a checkout counter. One hand held a book, the other was flipping Lance off. 

The surface of the checkout seemed to be the only indication of any sort of order to the place. It was beyond cluttered; each display had only the illusion of shelves or counters, since they were crammed so haphazardly. The pattern of shelves was labyrinthine, the bookshelves fading into what seemed like an endless corridor. Pidge wanted to reach out and run her hands along each artefact. She wanted to know each story locked within each relic and understand all of the chaos.

Every time she ran her gaze over the clutter, it was snatched to some other item of fascination. Some were too cast in shadow to make out exactly what they were beyond mere faded shapes; but that only made her vibrate with excitement. And the objects she could make out; well, they were marvellous and odd in all their angles and textures.

Of all the places in the universe, Pidge knew that she was supposed to have ended up here.

It was that realisation that broke her out of her trance, and she felt herself bubbling over with a thousand questions. 

“Lance, what’s that? Where did you get it?”

Pidge watched as Lance’s face lit up at the question. “Excavated elf bones. One of a kind, they’re evidence suggesting a common ancestor of human and fairy folk.”

“Is that some kind of mechanics or is that chair rocking by itself?”

“Coran collected it from the house of an old lady who lived in the Northern Country. It’s been linked to the deaths of ten infants, probably best not to touch it.”

Pidge retreated her grabby hands. “And this, this looks ancient. Is that an amethyst?” Before Lance could open his mouth, she whipped around again, eyes even wider with awe. “Could that be a witch’s cat? Can I-“

Lance exchanged a pointed look with the boy on the counter. The silent boy’s mouth was curving up slightly at the corner. “You know what, Pidge? I’m going to go fetch Coran. Have a feeling the two of you’ll get on fine.”

Lance disappeared behind a curtain into a back room. Pidge took the opportunity to turn her attention to the mystery boy, once more buried in his book.

He seemed oblivious to her presence, absorbed completely in his task with a quiet intensity. The polar opposite of Lance’s self-conscious animation; the negative space, with his milky skin and black hair. He stood out in different ways. Lance was an inspirer, he filled up each space with his nervous energy and his crooked smiles. This boy was an observer.

And his solemn gaze was observing Pidge, without her even noticing.

She coughed, then approached his station by the till. “My name’s Pidge. It’s good to meet you.” Pidge offered a hand, puffing out her chest.

The boy shook her hand stiffly, just about managing a smile. “I’m Keith. Welcome.”

Before Pidge could ask another of the infinite questions rolling off her tongue, Lance returned with two new people in his stride. One, a huge boy, face as youthful and warm as Lance’s own. He immediately smiled at Pidge, eyes twinkling with welcome and that all-too-familiar curiosity. The other was a slightly weedy man, with the airs, graces, and bright-orange moustache of an eccentric. Lance needn’t introduce him.

“Pidge, this is Hunk,” the boy waved. “And, of course, Coran.”

“Of course,” Pidge echoed.

“Coran will happily show you around. I’ve explained everything to him. Told you you’d like it round here.” Pidge smiled, a silent thanks to his efforts. He replied with a matching grin, cheerful and lopsided.

“Lance and I will be in the back offices,” Hunk continued. “We run a clinic there, so if anybody wanders in with dangerous-looking ailments, magical or otherwise, don’t fret it. Keith will wave them in. I trust you’ve met Keith?”

Pidge nodded slowly. She could feel the gape of her mouth. “You work in a clinic? Like, physicians?”

“Yeah, I studied medicine.” Lance’s chest was puffed out with pride. “Hunk and I provide treatment for anybody who would, uh, rather _not_ seek government healthcare. You’re looking at the hub of modern medicine in the Galra Empire! And Hunk’s the one who makes it all possible.”

“I’m just his assistant,” Hunk admitted modestly. “But, you’d be surprised at the amount of people turned away by the Galra. And with Lance’s particular talents-“ they were just bouncing compliments off each other, at this point. “Well, we’re pushing boundaries. It’s good to push boundaries.”

“Unconventional healthcare for unconventional people, provided by us, the uttermost lack of convention!” They draw back the curtain with a parting chuckle.

“Lance practices witchcraft,” Keith offered as a wry explanation. Should he be telling this to a stranger? “And Hunk’s undead. Brought back by a necromancer. They just like to speak in riddles about it, ‘cos, well, magic goes down a little sour with the Galran government.”

“Magic.” Pidge let her mouth trace the words, thrill brimming from someplace deep within her soul. Matt had been right.

Coran stepped forward, and spoke his first words to her; words Pidge had been long anticipating.

“So, where do you want to start?”

-  
After Pidge’s arrival, the afternoon had been a slow one. Only one patient; a shapeshifter, complaining of stomach cramps after each transition. Easily solved with a posy and a quick charm, Lance had sent him on his way and sunk back into boredom.

He know he should be using this time in the office to go over the latest study from the mainland, or file the notes from yesterday’s vivisection, or bully Keith into sketching diagrams for his theory work, but it was just all too much.

He’d never say it to Coran’s face, but he meant it. They had hit a dead end. He loved this place to its very foundation, he really did; it was a home beyond any he’d ever had. Nestled between the walls with his little family of misfits, runaways and rebels, he felt safe, but it could never be enough because out there was a whole city where the people lived in fear.

It’s a dangerous thing, to become disheartened with revolution. But they’d been slaving away for years with little signs of any sort of progress. Maybe he was too slow, too dumb to understand it but he didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing anymore! Would the revolution have guns blazing, or would it be a quiet political coup? Would they infiltrate the palace at night, or march in the town square under the midday sun?

He looked around, this tiny room he’d created as an anchor in a world he would never understand. Coran, Allura and Shiro’s complex diplomacy project may have been beyond him, but this was the closest Lance had gotten to making the universe a better place.

These stacks and drawers of fluttery notes were puzzle parts for each case, forming a bigger picture when pieced together in diagnosis. Healing stones that, when decommissioned, acted as glowing paperweights had often cast their light over clammy skin. Hunk’s spitting potion over the fireplace, soon to be bottled on dusty shelves beside pots of exotic flowers and herbs, would soon be handed to a worried relative of an invalid with a careful prescription note. The spellbook beneath the loose floorboard third to the right by the door would often be removed, when the curtains were drawn. And, that singular logbook, open on the corner desk, had Lance’s own careful print of all patients they’d treated. And all the lives they’d saved.

Hunk and he had created this all together. It had to count for something. Then, why did he feel so empty?

Once the potion had congealed, Hunk hung it by the single window. It was narrow and slanted, opening out into some grotty alleyway with a great mound of overflowing black binbags and a mangy street cat, who hissed whenever Lance offered her scraps of chicken from his lunch. Frustratingly enough, she would rub up against Keith’s leg and rumble happily whenever he put the bins out.

“Hey man, I was gonna get going with the vinegar for tomorrow, you may want to skedaddle.” Lance was poised to tell him to just open the window, when he felt a stab of guilt.

“Nah, you go home. You’ve done a lot today, I’ve just been staring into space like a ditz. It’s only fair.”

Hunk made a sympathetic face, but left without argument, indicating Lance’s self-evaluation was correct. In that case, he best busy himself with all the odd jobs, to bring the working day to a close.

When he finally locked up, he knew it was late as Keith was the only one still in the shop. Still perched on the counter, absorbed in his schoolwork.

“Where did-“

Keith looked up immediately. “Coran’s getting Pidge comfortable in her quarters upstairs. Thankfully. They’ve been nattering since you left, my ears are still ringing.”

“God, Keith! Where’s that gentleman we all know and love? Treat our guests with _respect_.” He leapt onto the counter, beside Keith, feigning that cheerfulness long since sapped by half a dozen hours of staring at a wall. Keith shifted to let him settle, moving a few stray textbooks to accommodate his bum. “She was excited.”

“Yeah. I know.” He was still wearing the pink jumper from earlier.

They lapsed into that thick, thick silence, the very kind that made Lance squirm as he listened to each sharp turn of the page. Until, the pages stopped turning.

A few minutes later, Keith sighed and snapped his book shut. “Why’d you stay behind today? Hunk left hours ago.”

“I wanted to close up for him, I’d done nothing all day. And lend a hand for Shay’s visit tomorrow. As you can imagine, he’s pretty nervous.” Lance’s light chuckle didn’t seem to budge the frown marring Keith’s perfect complexion. How come he was the only one who found Hunk’s pining hilarious?

“Done nothing? You brought Pidge in, that’s a huge thing.”

“Huh.”

Beat. He watched closely as Keith worked his jaw, then sighed in frustration.

“Okay, Lance. What I’m trying to ask is, are you alright?”

Lance inhaled, stalling so he could consider his options. Somehow, from Keith’s strange and backward Keith-language, he’d seen this coming and hadn’t really put much effort into changing the subject because, god, maybe all Lance needed was a boy to care about him and actually listen, once in a while. Yeah, maybe what Lance needed was a hunched-up frame, book spread open and forgotten, and soft features candlelit and pinched with concern. Concern for him.

Lance exhaled. Let his lips open and words spill. “Not really.”

“Oh.” Lance wondered if Keith was searing, too.

“Not really,” he repeated. “Ever since bringing Pidge in, I keep thinking of all these possibilities I promised her. She’s from the other side of the galaxy, you know; she’s grown up running from the law and to see a place where we’ve somehow managed to build a permanent home, a home full of outlaws and magic, I can’t even imagine how that feels for her. But what if this is just an empty promise?”

Lance was avoiding Keith’s eyes, but he could still feel them on his face. “How so?”

“Coran goes to a meeting each night to find no news. He drinks himself to sleep and wakes up to clients that never buy. I do nothing but take up space as patients never come anymore, Hunk has to comfort us all each hour just to keep us all afloat. And you-“ The bitterness was rising up his throat, until his voice broke from the acrid sting. “You’re working yourself to death, coming with shadows under your eyes and you won’t even let me _help_ you, for God’s sake.”

In that moment, Keith seemed to break a little, too. “I didn’t know you felt like that. But, we have to keep fighting, right?”

“I know, Keith. I know, it’s like, we’re born in the third generation of injustice, and we’ve both grown up knowing that things will change this century. Knowing that we have to do something about all the prisoners and all the fugitives and all the innocent slaves. I’m not short of a fighting spirit and would give everything to only help people, but _how?_ I drive myself crazy, lying awake all night trying to puzzle out the logistics of revolution.” He took a ragged breath, deflating as he realised how long he’d been speaking. Suddenly embarrassed of all the conflict within. “I guess…yeah, I guess introducing someone else to the mission just brought me down a little.”

Keith nudged him with a socked foot, forcing their eyes to meet. “Walk with me?”

Lance didn’t reply, but when Keith eased himself off the counter and began to pack up his belongings, he followed. And watched, silent, as he bolted the safe, flicked on the burglar alarm, wound a scarf around his neck, and ushered Lance out to lock the door in a well-oiled routine.

It was pouring with rain. The night was too inky to see, but immediately Lance felt frozen all over, raindrops rolling off his body and soaking through the stiff fabric of his coat. He raised his face, just as he had this morning, toward the fickle churn of the sky, a smear of moonlight barely visible from between the moody clouds. 

He let his face numb, just for a second, before Keith was shoving him and rolling his eyes. His eyes, bright and darting, were all he could see in the darkness. They were all he needed to see, before an arm was pulling him and they were running, full-pelt, from the rain.

Lance let Keith lead, down streets and alleys rendered unrecognisable under the waning moon. All he could register was the slapping of their feet against cobbles, and his own hot breaths, and the icy hand on his. And, in the whirl of midnight’s rich colours, he forgot his overflowing worry and hot embarrassment. He forgot the dangerous and beautiful world outside, and all he knew was the two of them.

The shape just ahead of him turned, and Lance’s eyes adjusted to barely reveal a milky white face. “There’s a bus shelter down the road. Don’t slow down!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” he replied, struggling to be heard above the pounding of the rain and their boots and their hearts. Keith didn’t respond. Maybe he hadn’t heard, but no matter, because his hand was tightening around Lance’s as he pulled harder, racing around tight corners and weaving the lampposts, as if the two of them were born to chase each other through the sprawling streets and make the city their playground.

Lance slammed into Keith as he ground to a halt, collapsing into the reinforced glass of the bus shelter. Chest heaving, Lance let his exhilaration catch up with him and spread a lazy grin across his face. He turned to Keith, illuminated in the orange of a nearby streetlamp, only to notice his pink jumper pulled over his head in a makeshift hood. Lance caught his eye.

They both burst out laughing.

“Has that been like that the entire time?” 

Keith attempted a pout, but his shoulders were shaking. “It’s called innovation, Lance. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“You too proud of your mullet to let a little rain at it?” Predictably, Keith was shoving him. 

“I do not have a mullet!” Keith tugged the sopping jumper back down, revealing his fluffed-up that’s-definitely-a-mullet-thank-you-very-much. One strand, the same which usually tickled the bridge of his nose that Lance always itched to tuck into place, hadn’t escaped the downpour. It was limp against his forehead and was trailing rainwater like teardrops down his cheeks.

Lance didn’t reply, just watched him watch the world. Washing over his soft features was an expression of such pure serenity that Lance was almost bowled over. He was so used to seeing Keith’s features scrunched up and pinched and pained, but it felt like by the flickering orange light Lance was seeing this boy with greater clarity than he could’ve ever hoped for.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah,” said Lance, absent-mindedly, before snapping his gaze away, face burning with guilt and embarrassment and _something else altogether_. Before he could dwell on it too long, he cleared his throat and forced himself to notice the things that were supposed to be beautiful. Like, the sound of rain on rooftops and the glisten of distant city lights.

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

Keith fumbled in the pockets of his backpack, sliding out a paperback from one of the inside pockets. “I want you to have this.” Lance wished he could smooth over the furrow that had appeared on his brows.

It was the book he had been reading earlier that day, on how to overthrow the government. Lance almost laughed as he accepted it from Keith’s tentative grasp.

And it was kind of incredible. Lance knew Keith was offering up comfort in the only way he could; in practical solutions and awkward gestures, and books, for God’s sake, because Keith thought books could save the world. And Lance let his body gently fill with a warmth to fight the nip of the night. The knowledge that Keith cared enough to try in his distinctly _Keith_ way.

“I have to go to the library now, so, uh, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” Keith was gazing once more at the rain, this time with eyes that were unseeing.

“What? But you’ve studied so much lately. You need to go home, get some rest,” Lance exclaimed.

“I’ve got reading to do. Reference texts and the like, I have to go over to take notes, it’s for my dissertation, there’s so much to do…” Keith’s mumbling trailed off, as his head retreated further and further into his jumper. Like a pink and fluffy tortoise, thought Lance.

“Keith,” he began, firm. Keith flinched, and he sighed, placing a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Keith, look at me. Go home.”

Looking into Keith’s eyes, Lance saw the moment he crumbled. A moment of stark vulnerability was all it took to make Lance silently swear to protect him, because this was too much for all of them, and Lance knew he couldn’t ever lose another to the weight of their complex universe. “Yeah. Okay.”

Suddenly embarrassed, Lance dropped his arm and looked away. “I’m already soaked. I may as well walk you home, make sure you don’t go sneaking to the library or whatever.” He stood up, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets and motioning for them to go.

“Hey, I would never sneak anywhere. You know me!”

“I do know you,” Lance grinned. “Which is why I’m walking you home.”

Keith scowled at him, mocking, as he gathered up his backpack. Just before they braved the rain, Lance paused, surveyed him. 

“Hey, Keith?” he said. “Thank you.”

_For the book. For offering all you had to help me. For your unwavering kindness, your bravery, your determination. For making me want to be better. For listening to me, and caring about me, and everything._

Keith smiled in acknowledgement and Lance knew he understood completely.

-

When Lance arrived home, Hunk was sitting on the kitchen counter, stuffing his pockets with biscuits.

Hunk lived on the other side of town, but this wasn’t by any means an uncommon occurrence. Lance baked a mean biscuit, and refused to divulge the secret ingredient, much to Hunk’s dismay. And anyway, Hunk was his best friend. Everything of Lance’s belonged to him. Everything of his belonged to Lance.

“You’re back late. I only popped in to pick up that necklace I left over last week, but I got worried.”

Lance rolled his eyes, but made sure to smile fondly. “Sorry Mum. I was walking Keith home. You know you can just straight up eat the biscuits?”

A chuckle was audible in his voice. “Keith, huh? That’s nice of you, Lance.” Lance had to mentally remind himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t punch Hunk. “And anyway, I like saving these biscuits for special occasions. You wouldn’t understand. These are special biscuits, they have to come home with me.”

“Yeah, anyway. How about Pidge, then? She reminds me of somebody.”

“Yeah, actually, I was thinking that. She reminds me of that rebel guy from across the galaxy. Like, him and Coran have meetings now and again, and Coran always comes out with crazy eyes and a newly-found rebellious streak. Can’t remember his name.”

Something clicked inside Lance’s tiny brain. “Oh, you mean Holt? They look identical, actually.”

Hunk jumped off the counter, dusting biscuit crumbs from his front. “Yeah. It’s uncanny.” He ruffled Lance’s cropped hair, sauntering towards the door with extra biscuits hidden up his sleeves. “You sleep well now, Lance. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight.” And Hunk disappeared into the evening rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you liked it. Please please leave any feedback below, and have a lovely day!!!
> 
> follow me on instagram! fan: @spacecuppa, spam: @ravewitch69 xo


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